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[Fr. pochoir; Ger. Schablone]

Printmaking technique that allows a design to be repeated on almost any surface by rubbing, brushing or spraying ink, dye or paint through holes cut in a thin sheet of semi-rigid, moisture-proof material (see also Prints §III 3.). A negative stencil design can be made by placing any object against a surface and depositing colour around it.

The process has been used most frequently to accelerate the hand colouring of line drawings printed on paper by other means. In some cases it is possible to distinguish stencilled colour from that applied freehand. The stencil, of toughened paper, metal shim or celluloid, forms a ‘well’ in which the liquid colour collects, drying with a heavier concentration at the perimeter; yet it does not display any sign of the pressure typical of relief blocks. While freehand colouring may overshoot an outline at random, the entire area of a misregistered stencil will tend to be displaced....